


an empty bliss beyond this world

by Saji



Category: American Horror Story: Hotel
Genre: Blow Jobs, Canonical Character Death, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Ghost Sex, Ghosts, Haunted Houses, M/M, Serial Killers, Suggestive Themes, the Hotel Cortez
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 04:09:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11981832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saji/pseuds/Saji
Summary: John had chalked it up to sleep deprivation at first. Now, he understands it for exactly what it was: a siren's song trying to lull him back home.





	an empty bliss beyond this world

John had chalked it up to sleep deprivation at first. 

He'd been dragged out of a dream by static and the scent of copper. A glance at the clock by his bedside had him groaning: 2:25AM. An ungodly hour to be awake, he'd think, if he had any belief in God in the first place.

The soft sway of ballroom music had crept into earshot as he sat up in bed. Frowning and swallowed thickly, his throat clogged with cotton wool, he'd tried to ignore the melody floating from down the hall. In those subsequent nights John had dimly registered it as a Ray Noble piece, lying awake with his brow stitched into knots and the inside of his cheek chewed raw. _Midnight, the Stars and You,_ 1931\. It had felt like so much _more_ than a few guests just throwing a party.

Now he understands it for exactly what it was: a siren's song trying to lull him back home. 

 

* * *

 

There are tears streaking down John's cheeks as he falls to the ground after the first gunshot. He's lying on his belly on rough asphalt, his shoulder burning with a bullet lodged in it as he makes a desperate attempt to crawl forward on his elbows. He's so close. The front steps to the Cortez are mere _feet_ away from him.

" _Please_ ," he finds himself begging. "Please, let me die inside—"

If he did believe in whatever god March had killed, now would be a time to pray.

Instead, he's desperately pleading aloud to no one as another shot leaves his ears ringing. Something in his lower spine sears.  

John's rasping turns into a slurred string of _please, fuck, **please**_ , but by then his cheek's resting against the rain-soaked pavement and darkness begins to march into his vision.

It would be comforting if he was bleeding out against the crimson carpet of the Cortez's lobby.

Outside in the cold, John doesn't feel very comforted. 

Death catches up with him anyway.

 

* * *

 

John wakes up. At first, he isn't sure if it could be called waking up at all: one minute he was bleeding out in the rain, and the next he was aware of a dark warmth stretching around him like a cocoon.

His five senses lag behind. Lifetimes pass before he's granted sight again, and even longer before he can touch.

What John registers first is the wood panelling of room 64 looming over him. John's thoughts between to swim and then, eventually, thrash. He jerks upright and inhales sharply, unable to help it.

 _Was the pavement enough?_  he wonders. _Was I close enough that I—_

Dying inside. That's all he'd wanted. 

The walls of the Cortez begin to bleed from their cornices as John slides out of the bed he'd woken in. Tears spring to his eyes, unintentional or not, when an icy shudder courses through him.

It's as if he's being welcomed home.

"I missed you, too," he says aloud, letting out a dry not-laugh of relief as he splays a hand against the bubbling wallpaper.

It begins to rot under his touch. The walls creak. 

A rivulet of blood zig-zags its way down the wall and John, his inhibitions dashed to the rocks in death, leans over to catch it with his tongue.

 

* * *

 

"I was hoping we'd see you again," James March says. The lilt of his voice makes John's hackles rise, but it's difficult to suppress a quiet smile at the realisation that's settling into his bones.

He's been subsumed by the darkness here. Swallowed up and remoulded, made a part of something larger.

John waits a few more seconds before he turns to face March, and he lets out a quiet exhale at just how _manic_ the look in the man's eyes is. He has a smile to match.

"I wasn't going to leave the party that easily."

March laughs, a low and rumbling sound, and claps John on the back as he leads him to dinner.  

 

Later in the evening John's kneeling before James, blood marring his face and his knees digging into the hard concrete of the Cortez's floor. They're surrounded by the filth of the boiler room deep in the bowels of the hotel. The scent of mould hangs heavy in the air. 

The wetness of March's cock slides against John's cheek and pale, dead fingers caress his face.

John smiles. It's only then that he prays.


End file.
